Run Multiple Exec Commands in the same shell golang

Question

I'm having trouble figuring out how to run multiple commands using the os/exec package. I've trolled the net and stackoverflow and haven't found anything that works for me case. Here's my source:

package main

import (
    _ "bufio"
    _ "bytes"
    _ "errors"
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "os"
    "os/exec"
    "path/filepath"
)

func main() {
    ffmpegFolderName := "ffmpeg-2.8.4"
    path, err := filepath.Abs("")
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error locating absulte file paths")
        os.Exit(1)
    }

    folderPath := filepath.Join(path, ffmpegFolderName)

    _, err2 := folderExists(folderPath)
    if err2 != nil {
        fmt.Println("The folder: %s either does not exist or is not in the same directory as make.go", folderPath)
        os.Exit(1)
    }
    cd := exec.Command("cd", folderPath)
    config := exec.Command("./configure", "--disable-yasm")
    build := exec.Command("make")

    cd_err := cd.Start()
    if cd_err != nil {
        log.Fatal(cd_err)
    }
    log.Printf("Waiting for command to finish...")
    cd_err = cd.Wait()
    log.Printf("Command finished with error: %v", cd_err)

    start_err := config.Start()
    if start_err != nil {
        log.Fatal(start_err)
    }
    log.Printf("Waiting for command to finish...")
    start_err = config.Wait()
    log.Printf("Command finished with error: %v", start_err)

    build_err := build.Start()
    if build_err != nil {
        log.Fatal(build_err)
    }
    log.Printf("Waiting for command to finish...")
    build_err = build.Wait()
    log.Printf("Command finished with error: %v", build_err)

}

func folderExists(path string) (bool, error) {
    _, err := os.Stat(path)
    if err == nil {
        return true, nil
    }
    if os.IsNotExist(err) {
        return false, nil
    }
    return true, err
}

I want to the command like I would from terminal. cd path; ./configure; make So I need run each command in order and wait for the last command to finish before moving on. With my current version of the code it currently says that ./configure: no such file or directory I assume that is because cd path executes and in a new shell ./configure executes, instead of being in the same directory from the previous command. Any ideas? UPDATE I solved the issue by changing the working directory and then executing the ./configure and make command

err = os.Chdir(folderPath)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("File Path Could not be changed")
        os.Exit(1)
    }

Still now i'm curious to know if there is a way to execute commands in the same shell.

Answer 1

If you want to run multiple commands within a single shell instance, you will need to invoke the shell with something like this:

cmd := exec.Command("/bin/sh", "-c", "command1; command2; command3; ...")
err := cmd.Run()

This will get the shell to interpret the given commands. It will also let you execute shell builtins like cd. Note that this can be non-trivial to substitute in user data to these commands in a safe way.

If instead you just want to run a command in a particular directory, you can do that without the shell. You can set the current working directory to execute the command like so:

config := exec.Command("./configure", "--disable-yasm")
config.Dir = folderPath
build := exec.Command("make")
build.Dir = folderPath

... and continue on like you were before.